"Look at the small print of this week's Budget and you'll see a hidden clause that hasn't been picked up on by harried members of The Lobby. The government's so-called 'Play 4 Pay' or 'Swings + Roundabouts' scheme has the dual aim of taking the strain off hard-pressed social workers whilst simultaneously getting the monumentally feckless back into work.

The country's most stubbornly bone idol will receive recompense in exchange for playing with highly vulnerable youngsters all day in Britain's myriad dilapidated playgrounds. Dole users will receive £2.31 a month in 'newsagent credits' which can be used on sweets or pop, but definitely not on fags. The criminally indolent apparently love p*ssing about on slides and swings all afternoon anyway - so it looks like a goer".

2Online advertising

Web mistress Oulu Franchester-Hellcombe muses:

"Nigerian spammers have been recalibrating their calculations of late. Instead of asking 40 year-olds if they would like to 'Look and feel 20 years younger', spam ads will now ask 40 year-olds whether they want to 'Look and feel 30 years younger'. Plenty of grown-ups who long for a return to the simpler days of childhood are expected to answer 'Yes please!'"

2Ga Ga Ga Bar

Arts editor and East London resident Vilchetta Clamproof elucidates:

"A new bar has opened simultaneously in Dalston, London, and Williamsburg, New York, which takes the infantilisation of punters to new depths. 'Liquid entrepreneur' Ost Banhof, who previously opened Puppy Corpse - where drinks are served in dog heads - was inspired by the sickening recent preponderance in bars of milk bottles, stripy straws, juvenile nomenclature, cack-handed interior design straight out of infant school, chairs and tables straight of infant school, and a general sense of gnawing disgust for the sophisticated drinker.

Ga Ga Ga Bar will serve alcoholic gripe water cocktails in baby bottles and dummies infused with tequila, which drinkers suck. The terrace features a paddling pool, Lego, a Wii, and 2500 One Direction dolls scattered hither and thither".

3Kid's food

Food journalist Geffryda Frygefda scribbles:

"Kid's food is all around London's gobs at the moment: from cheeseburgers to fried chicken and chips. The babying of our food is 2013's stand-out trend. In Stoke Newington, T Time serves Alphabetti Spaghetti with sustainably sourced, gourmet pollock fish fingers and petit pois on the side. At RUSK in Soho, tapas of organic puréed baby food is served in dinky jars to diners sporting bibs - and teamed with 'dipping' rusks.

At Fling! in Clapham Junction's 'Nappy Valley' affluent parents of the next generation of spoilt little London sh*ts are invited to behave exactly like their uproarious offspring by flinging their food around, crying, sulking, throwing plates at the floor and smearing ketchup all over their fat faces".

4Juvenile web content

Media correspondent Jeremy Fukbaskaets vomits:

"Cory Oranges Jr is a New York website owner who's just launched a UK version of his highly successful American site based on the power of sharing and the social web (and the fact that most of us concluded any meaningful mental development around the age of 11).

Oranges Jr has presciently concluded that the public don't give a flying fig about Al-Qaeda In The Islamic Maghreb or the intricacies of CIA false flag operations in the Sahel. What, however, they do love is grumpy cats and gifs featuring one of the Baldwin brothers. Oranges Jr recently outlined the site's strategy at SXSWi as one of 'Gossip, LULZ and lists'".

5Film

Casppar Fzzzf, film critic, barks:

"According to my Hollywood sources, Gaspar Noé is adapting Barack Obama's book for children - Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters - into a charming movie aimed squarely at under-8s. Due to Noé's involvement, adult interest in the film is expected to be high.

Meanwhile Pixar are working on an animated adaptation of Pasolini's Salò for kids - and, like all Pixar movies, this one should be getting the asses of mums and dads on those seats too".

6Literature for kids (for adults)

Tom Wroxham, PR, perorates:

"I've been trying to get a satirical novel about my life in the media published for bloody ages now. My agent Chicory Hotwax keeps telling me to can it and write a book for kids instead. I was having lunch with Chix at The Clove Club last week and she told me that EL James, DBC Pierre and Stewart Home are all writing books for children - each to be illustrated with lavish cartoons of adorable puppies and the like.

Chix confirmed that most adults are now either so lazy, attention-deficient or simply braindead that they can scarcely manage reading to the end of a supposedly 'funny' blog post conjured up in one angry afternoon by a disgruntled hack, yet alone manage to plough through an entire literary novel written for adults. But a book for kids - they can manage. Just".]]>13 For 2013: The Top Young Media Hot Shots Who'll Be Doing Much Better Than You This Yeartag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24149612013-01-06T19:00:00-05:002013-03-08T05:12:01-05:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/1Polly Eversson
Seven year-old North Yorkshire schoolgirl Polly Eversson is tipped as a future prime minister. At the age of five, she began her own social networking site for tweenagers, selling it last year to Facebook for £900 Million. She is the world's youngest Billionaire, and - if her fake ID works - plans to stand in the 2015 General Election as a Conservative candidate.

2Oulu Franchester-Hellcombe
Oulu won Community Manager Of The Year in the 2012 'Hugz' - the Oscars of the Community Management industry - for moderating a thread about the relative benefits of Israeli and Palestinian hummus. Her acceptance speech at the awards was crowd-sourced in real time from the audience of 250 - and, including, comments from the floor, took 35 hours to complete.

3Xi Hani
"Fellow young people told me that context and history bore the teeth out of them! Who has time for that stuff?" says San Francisco-based Chinese internet mogul Xi Hani - who has developed a news aggregation app for iPhones called Iiinnstaaantiii. It removes all context, history and background from every news story - instead burping up the scant, barely digestible, officially sanctioned bones of a story instead. "My father, a very important Communist party cadre, is absolutely nuts for this sh*t. And so is the entire party in Beijing. It's f*cking awesome man: they've all invested a ton of Yuan in it!"

4 Jeremy Fukbaskaets
Fukbaeskets has turned 'entrepreneurial journalist' by setting up a boutique online artisan jounalismery - where writers pay him for the prestige of appearing in his publication. This new media model is already generating considerable interest from investors in both The City and on Wall Street.

5 Ark Hardd
Finnish director Ark Hardd has made a film where no-one actually meets each other at all - you just see various people who live in a modest Scandinavian town communicating via their laptops.Lapland Laptop Life In Lappeenranta is on general release on Aug 18 2013.

6Olivier Oliver
Olivier was conceived during a romantic break to Paris in August 2012 by his mother Eve, a blogger and furniture designer and her husband William, a marketing guru. Despite only being a bundle of cells, Olivier has already developed a fledgling inter-uterine social networking service, called Womb2Womb, which allows the unborn offspring of successful people to communicate with each other before they are even born.

7Frankincense Splendid
Playwright Frankincense Splendid spent all of 2012 living in a house made of giant pretzels in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg while writing a play based on all the tweets he sent and received during the year. The entire audience at each performance are also the protagonists - each takes one of the 1000 or so roles and reads out various tweets. @MyF***ingGreatPlay begins at Royal Court Theatre on Feb 1 2013.

8Krampjet Orifield
Krampjet Orifield has just moved from Mountain View, California, to Manaus in the Brazilian Amazon - where he has begun to systematically slaughter endangered jaguars, toucans and dusky titi monkeys in large numbers. Why? "I'd already disrupted the traditional media ecosystem is Silicon Valley", quips the highly tipped start-up guru. "So now I've decided to take that philosophy further - by disrupting a real ecosystem."

9Fifififi Gramercy-Park
The philosopher and TV presenter's new book Me-dia, I-dea, You-dea or Us-dea: Would Hegel Be Happy Or Heartbroken If He Picked Up A Copy Of Metro And Flicked Straight To Pet Of The Day? is published this March.

10Cory Oranges Jr
The publisher of New York-based media gossip website www.porkbarrel-porkies.com is not really on the path to success. But Oranges Jr offered us a substantial bribe - in the form of non-traceable share options - in order to be featured in this hot shots list, so here he is.

11Tom Wroxham
PR of the year for 2013. Wroxham currently specialises in creating fun and engaging PR campaigns for the tourist boards and governments of sickening countries led by despicable authoritarian dictators who eat kittens for breakfast and approve of the mass torture and assassination of journalists and bloggers who dare to question anything. He also represents a cabal of shockingly overrated dubstep DJs.

12Geffryda Frygefda
The prodigious Welsh food journalist managed to Instagram a photo of every single morsel of food she ate in 2012 - that's over 5000 individual photos. She'll be guesting on Masterchef soon and predicts 2013's food trends thus: "Paper napkins, Mauritanian joints that look like they're straight out of a downtown Nouakchott back street, Kazakh beheaded goat, baozi filled with baby blackbirds, herring."

13Olivia Franchester-Hellcombe
At 21, Olivia is certainly going places in the world of journalism. Her father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, auntie, uncle, two cousins and 34 of her best friends are all journalists. Her sister is the noted social networking guru Oulu. Olivia has managed to secure work experience with every UK national newspaper, two book publishers, four new media companies and five magazines. She has a blog about buckles. One unnamed features commissioning editor described her writing as "f***ing dismal." But we say: "Look how well connected she is! This chick is GOING PLACES."]]>I'm a Confessional Journalist: Why Do Other Confessional Journalists Think My Commissioning Editor Is Fair Game?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23451392012-12-22T19:00:00-05:002013-02-21T05:12:01-05:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/Here, female confessional journalist LARA CRUMBLE wonders aloud why all the other confessional journalists are after her commissioning editor.

Two weeks ago I strutted into a brasserie off Kensington High Street called Le Lapin Mort - fashionably late of course! With a freshly blow-dried do and a pair of killer heels strapped to my feet, I felt ready to go hip to hip with Kate Middleton in a shimmying competition - and win!

I strode up to my burly commissioning editor and planted a flirtatious kiss on his stubbly cheek. Imagine my horror when he made an expansive gesture with his arm - revealing the other 20 freelance confessional journalists who also work for the same middle market tabloid I do.

All of them were wearing the same kind of fake smile that my cleaner does when I give her the annual £1 Christmas tip. Like her, they too looked like ungrateful b***hes. I wanted to stab each of them in the eye with my mascara pencil.

I turned to my commissioning editor and pouted: "But I thought I was the only one of your freelance female confessional journalists you'd invited to the Christmas party this year. No fair."

He slugged on his Bordeaux and winked at me: "Lara, my darling, I invited them all so you could write me a piece next week about how you hate all the other freelancers because they keep trying to get work from me. You can use that quote! Or just make one up. Everyone else does! If you can't be bothered, don't fret - the sub will make one up for you!"

Suffice to say it was a long night. Sheherazade flicked her hair and laughed at CE (that's commissioning editor)'s jokes, shouting: "I can't even remember how to write in the third person any more!"

Ismereldia wore an indecently low cut top that her décolletage threatened to spill out of every time she jumped up and purred at a smiling CE: "I've got a great pitch about how every mum I see on the school run - and the teachers too - are all after my handsome hubby!"

Delililahh meanwhile wore a dress as flimsy as a négligé and wiggled her bot in front of CE's face at every opportunity. She looked like she wanted to be f****d in the f**** by Fr*nchman. Probably one of the ghastly waiters who misheard my foie gras order as escargots.

Lately it's felt like every other female confessional journalist in the world has been trying to steal my commissioning editor's attention - and commissions - from me. Whether they're young, cheap interns or saggy old mums who've been freelancing at the paper for years. Either way - these chicks just don't understand the meaning of the word 'sisterhood'. Thank God I do.

But it wasn't always this way - when CE was just a jobbing journalist the girls didn't bat an eyelid. But now he's got the power to commission them, his stock has risen. "Fight amongst yourselves ladies! That's the point - can't you see?" he laughed heartily, before ordering another Scotch.

But then I remembered something so important I had to stand on my tip toes and belt it out at the top of my voice: "YOU'RE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND BEST CONFESSIONAL JOURNALIST IN THE WORLD LARA!"

The restaurant went quiet.

CE looked over and smiled. "Lara, the confessional pieces you write for us are increasingly sliding into a fantasy world populated by elves, trolls and misogynists. You probably need to see a therapist. I think we're starting to go through the looking glass here. But you know what darling? I wouldn't want it any other way! Your pieces get thousands of comments on the website. Give me 700 words on why you hate all the other female freelancers by next Monday. And keep up the good work!"

I win!]]>Revealed: The Newspaper of the Futuretag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20100532012-10-26T19:00:00-04:002012-12-26T05:12:01-05:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/What will the newspaper of the future look like in - say - 2086? Media experts share their prophecies.

The paper of the future
"Rather than wrapping fish 'n' chips, tomorrow's technologically advanced electronic newspapers will be interactive - and edible. You will literally be able to eat Jan Moir's face as she reads aloud her review of the 2086 grand final of Great British Bake Off presented by Mel & Sue's re-animated corpses."Jeremy Fukbaskaets, media analyst
The content of the future
"By 2017, the Hunstanton Bugle will use 100% user generated content and be staffed entirely by community managers rather than journalists. Headlines will include things like: 'I Heard That Fellow Living On Trumpton Street Has Got Himself A Thai Bride - Exclusive by 67 year-old Mrs Joan Willis of Custard Close.' And even weekly user generated restaurant reviews: 'I Ain't Going To Nando's Again - I Saw Joe Dip His C*** In The Peri Peri Sauce Man [One star] - by Joe's mate Si (15).'"Tom Wroxham, PR
Celebrity and the tabloids
"A few months ago I broke open the John Smith's for good old Lord Leveson, thinking that those tabloid b**tards wouldn't be coming near any of us ever again. Who cares what I've done with a researcher in a cupboard? She was on the pill - apparently. Since last week though - f***." Todd Bixelby, comedian and TV presenter

Integration of print, broadcast, web and social
"Imagine a lovely kitten sitting on a lawn. She's fluffy and called Claire! Now imagine three little blackbirds land on the grass. Then a squirrel hops over. A puppy bounds up next, barking - but in that sort of high-pitched way that puppies do! Finally an unbelievably cute seven year-old boy called Oscar runs over clutching a radio controlled car. Then they all start playing a game of Top Trumps. That's integration!"Oulu Franchester-Hellcombe, digital social futurical cyborg

Paying for a newspaper
"All content will be free - all hacks will write for newspapers for free and make money from books and appearances on The Wright Stuff. Personally I'm fine with this. Like most columnists I use my space every week, or indeed interviews I do talking about the media - or sex - to plug my latest book. I'll say something like: 'My new book The Man Hooker Prize: Why Do Some Girls Win The Prize For Hooking A Man But I Never Do?' is out now. Then I'll call the sub and tell them I'll rip their throat out if they don't print that line again at the bottom of the interview."Lara Crumble, magazine features writer and columnist

American newspapers
"We call 'em 'sliders' now. Not because papers' sales are sliding - though of course they are. Nope, because you need a lot of 'em to satisfy you. Also how are you supposed to flick between the sports and porno if you're reading a newspaper? It's over, friends."Cory Oranges Jr., publisher of New York-based media gossip website www.porkbarrel-porkies.com

The journalists of the future
"Do you think your darling little grandson or granddaughter is going to sit on your knee and say: 'Grandma, I want to work long hours for poor money and heroically battle established elites, tell uncomfortable truths, and hold up a mirror to a society which increasingly seems to have fractured into a million different pieces like so much of a metaphysically distressing Kantian proclamation come true'? No. They're going to say: 'Me wanna be app developer.'"Fifififi Gramercy-Park, philosopher and author of "Me-dia, I-dea, You-dea or Us-dea: Would Hegel Be Happy Or Heartbroken If He Picked Up A Copy Of Metro And Flicked Straight To Pet Of The Day?"

Lara Crumble's new book 'The Man Hooker Prize: Why Do Some Girls Win The Prize For Hooking A Man But I Never Do?' is out now (Discrepancy Publishing)]]>The Post-Olympic Bluestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18056272012-08-20T19:00:00-04:002012-10-20T05:12:04-04:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/Donald Saddington - depressed journalist, 57 year-old widower, and recent migrant to East London - finds that everyone but him seems to be coasting on an Olympic feel good factor.

"BANG BANG BANG" went the front door of my hastily rented flat in Hackney, the horrendous rapping waking me with a dreadful start from a wistful dream. It starred my late wife, who was cradling a mixing bowl with her left arm and stirring purposefully with her right. Sepia sunlight dappled on honey hair and bounced off bright eyes. She was smiling at me.

"Orrwwwight mate, packidge for ya. Sign 'ere." I scribbled 'Donald Saddington'. Blinking, I ripped open the parcel on the doorstep. It was the manuscript of the novel I've been slaving over. A hand-written note from my agent Chazory Greenfingers was paper-clipped to the front. "Hi darling. Adore the sentiment but it's not quite right. Too much satire. Won't sell. Any chance you can re-write with a soupcon more shooting, dating travails and f***ing? Dirty stuff that is. That's what's Penguin wants right now. Merci cherie! Lunch next week? The Spanked Trouser? On me, naturellement. CG XX."

A commotion in the street made me look up. I squinted through the bedevilling brightness to see a long trestle table draped with Union flags. Parked around the table were dozens of buggies. One was plated in gold with Bose speakers in the sides emitting what I think my daughter called dubstep music, another hovered gently just above the ground.

I thought I recognised one of the owners of the buggies as my neighbour. She angrily chirruped in cut glass vowels to an accomplice: "I read the f***ing b***ard's texts, it must be true."
"What a f***ing sl*g."
"How could he be such a pr**k though?"
"You should chop his c**k off."
The occupants of the buggies gurgled merrily.

The woman turned and spied me eavesdropping. "Dennis! Come over here and have some nibbles at our Team GB street party. The olive oil is from Antarctica! Artisan! Antarctisan?" And with this she guffawed spectacularly. She whispered something to her friend, who grinned, then sashayed over. I felt she was flirting. "Nice pyjamas," she purred. "I'm not usually patriotic by the way, but it said in the Guardian that all this is okay now." She rummaged in her handbag and produced a fat cigarette. "Twos a joint, sweets?"

I excused myself and went back to bed. When I woke up my head was thudding. I poured a large Lagavulin and phoned my daughter. "Dad, can the animus, you're a grumpmeister because you're Scottish. Get with the programme. I'm going to a LOLOlympic party in Homerton tonight! As Laura Trott! Ooh, got to dash, Olivier is calling me. He's cycling to Burning Man Festival. Across the floor of the Atlantic!"

I grabbed at one of my late wife's cardigans and rubbed it softly against my cheek, breathing the microscopic remnants of her heady fragrance deep into my lungs. A single tear rolled down my cheek. I opened my emails. The first was from my PR, Melanie Liars. "Hi David. Please turn off your OOO. I know you're there. I'm reaching out to you say I've thought how we can leverage your wife's death! I've booked you on Nicky Campbell next..." I stopped reading.

I walked to London Fields for some fresh air. When I got there I saw two giraffes munching on leaves 20 feet in the air. On their backs sat two young men both wearing chinos, T shirts that read "Metallica" and Wayfarer sunglasses. "Have you like seen that new map function on Instagram?" said one.
"Uh huh," replied the other.
Below them two girls sat cross-legged on the grass, both wearing mint green jeans, T shirts that read "Beach House" and Wayfarer sunglasses. "Have you like seen those vintage maps on Pinterest?" said one.
"Mmm hmm," replied the other.

My phone went off. It was the paper. "Dexter, I want 1000 words on why everyone's so happy at the moment. I know you're the man. Deadline is close of play tomorrow. And don't forget that workshop on engaging with the paper's online community on Thursday."

One of the girls came over to me. "I know you! Derek, it's me, Oulu. Franchester-Hellcombe. Wired recently called me 'London's most communitennected digital duchess!' We met the other week."
"Oh hi," I managed, dispirited. "How are you?"
"Come and meet my beau! He's riding that giraffe over there. He's a developer. He's building this interface that allows animals to talk to humans. ROFL! Let's go and try it out!"

I said I had a date. I did. It was with a woman I'd met online. My daughter forced me. We enjoyed a reasonable dinner, though everything was confusingly served on small plates. She was pretty and the conversation was flowing. After a few glasses of chilled Pouilly-Fumé I even thought I might like her.

Then her phone started ringing. After two long, evidently emotional conversations she returned, apologetic. "My daughter's just had a baby and thinks her husband's having an affair." Breathless, she added: "and my son can't secure seed funding for his new app that allows us to talk to our pets. Now where were we Daniel?"

It all sank in. I exhaled loudly, fell forward and smashed my head down on the table with such force that my dessert plate shattered, flinging panna cotta all over my date's dress. I looked up to see that her eyes were filled with pure horror.]]>Olympic London: The Coolest Place on the Planet?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16584022012-07-10T19:00:00-04:002012-09-09T05:12:04-04:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/Donald Saddington writes...

I emerge, blinking, at Dalston Kingsland Station following my long journey down from Scotland. I'm here to find out just how 'cool' London really is in this Olympic year.

The first things I see are banners erected by Hackney Council on the lampposts up and down the main drag. They read: "London 2012: Letz all f***in' smile!" and "London 2012: innit".

I'm met by Oulu Franchester-Hellcombe. "I'm an arbiter of cool - and a blogger!" she says, getting down off her penny farthing.

I ask her why she's towing a supermarket trolley filled with the bleeding torso of a man. "It's my boyfriend!" she chirrups with delight. "He's a poet! He hacked both his legs off this morning with a butter knife!" A groan comes from the trolley: "It's... cool..." he manages to gurgle. She nods.

Speechless, I retreat to the newsagents and buy a bar of Fry's Peppermint Cream to try and lift my mood.

Oulu leads me up the street to a new bar. She pushes her beau along in the trolley - it clatters as it rebounds off the frequent cracks, at one point almost dislodging the rubber duck perched on top of his head.

"Puppy Corpse!" she yells. We descend a flight of steps into the subterranean bar. The smell of rotting flesh makes me retch.

Ost Bahnhof, the barman at Puppy Corpse, tells me: "I'm a myxomatologist," before pouring the ingredients of a Negroni into an upside-down dog's head that has been hollowed out.

"Some people use jam jars or food tins for cocktails, but we've gone one stage further. It's cool..." says Bahnhof before retiring behind the counter. I hear some barks and some thumping noises, then silence.

I go upstairs. The bar's public relations consultant Melanie Liars is spreadeagled on the pavement munching on a huge concrete slab. "It's got lots of minerals in it!" she giggles.

I catch a ride in a flying car to the Olympic Park itself. A sign at the entrance reads: "We are very sorry but all the buildings here are sh*t".

On a pitch made from artificial grass about 100 men wearing blindfolds form a sweating mass - bumping and banging into each other. The ball is hoofed around without rhyme or reason.

One player tells me: "This is blind football - the coolest sport craze. It'll be in the next Olympics! I work in advertising. We all do!" before smashing his head on the goalpost and knocking himself out.

I take the Tube into Central London and check into a minimalist new hotel concept called Notel. "Are you foreign sir?" asks the receptionist politely. I joke that I'm Scottish and he smiles. "Why?" I ask. "If you're foreign we'll charge you £5000 more sir," he adds.

He shows me to my room in the basement. It is empty and windowless. "The Sybaritic Suite sir," he grins wryly. "But you only pay for what you need. A bed will cost an extra £100."

I lie on the concrete floor, thinking of my daughter. I ring her - but her phone goes to voicemail: "Hi! This is Isobel's voicemail! Leave me a message - or make me ROFL! Lots of LOLS!"

I order a pizza from room service. The hotel employee who delivers it tells me it's topped with "hand-scavenged samphire, human albumen, biodynamic grains, foam of house bricks."

I use the hotel's teleportation device to travel to Broadway Market and meet journalist Lara Crumble in her flat. "Tonight it's a pop-up speakeasy!" she shouts, before attacking a friend's hair with a cheese-grater. "Cheese-grating each other's hair is cool!"

Loud music thuds. A man crosses the room gingerly and leers at me - his face looks like it's about to slide off his head. He regains his composure and holds up a pineapple. "Shove it up your ar*e," he intones. "Shove it up your ar*e!" he says again - more insistently this time. "There's a stimulant in pineapples that really gets you going. I've got two up mine."

Out on the street, I collapse forlornly into a cross-legged mess. An injured bumble bee buzzes around in circles before slipping into a drain. I reminisce about sipping Grappa with my wife on our honeymoon as moonlight danced off the surface of Lake Como.

A pretty girl dismounts from a wallaby, ties it up, and plonks down next to me. "Awww you look sad," she purrs, taking a photo of me on her phone. The flash temporarily blinds me. "It's for my Tumblr about sad people!"

A young man joins us. He pulls out a pistol. "Granddad. New game for you," he babbles in plummy public school tones. "Russian Roulette. It's very much loaded. You want in, yeah? It's cool." I take the revolver, prod the cold steel barrel into my temple, and pull the trigger.]]>Completely Half-Baked: Britain's First Artisan Journalismery Openstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15034102012-05-10T19:00:00-04:002012-07-10T05:12:16-04:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/
In a railway arch in east London (well it wouldn't be anywhere else in Britain, would it?), with egos rumbling everywhere and pitiful ephemera collected from various predictable world travels self-consciously littered about the place like so much quasi-cosmopolitan detritus, Jeremy Fukbaskaets plunges his hands onto a laptop computer.

He's starting a process that - four hours from now - will result in a crushingly p*ss-poor feature for some magazine or website or something that simply needn't have ever been typed in the first place. "It's alchemy," he says, with wonder in his eyes.

This cabal of young guns have inexplicably given up careers with levels of remuneration commensurate to their qualifications and swapped it all for a laughably underpaid calling: journalism.

They're up with the foxes, slaving away to craft content people seldom even bother to read properly - let alone digest and give anything approaching a sh*t about. The air here is thick with the smell of half-baked journalism.

'I've been playing Draw Something all morning," coughs Jeremy Fukbaskaets, the group's swaggering leader. "I was trying to draw "Gary Numan's c*ck". That's the best material you're ever going to get for a colour piece right there.'

Fukbaskaets puts his iPhone down and perches on an Ottoman like a heron, scratching his chin as he ponders. He sits totally naked ('I find it freeing') and behind him on the wall is a poster for the sitcom 2 Broke Girls.

"Our story, this one, is just the kind of Godawful tosh that out-of-steam features editors absolutely adore," he smiles.

"You know - when someone starts making ANYTHING in London by hand. I have a friend who keeps a herd of cows in his studio flat. He's setting up an artisan yoghurt business - when he's not busy developing his cloud-based bicycle basket rating app, of course!"

Every morning Fukbaskaets and his asinine friends rise early and use the finest ingredients and sources to make their journalism. The end result is thus thoroughly overpriced.

"We live in a post-post-Leveson world," he muses, cupping his b*lls. "People expect their journalism to be fresh, healthy, handmade now. We sell ours at journalism markets - truly horrifying f**kfests which take place in Stoke Newington school playgrounds and attract the very worst kind of smug pram-pushing broadsheet reader." He winks: "People, in fact, like you and I."

It's not just journalism either. "It's not just journalism either," says Fukbaskaets, snapping shut this month's issue of Wired magazine with a flourish. "The artisanal movement is sweeping across the media landscape like a fart on a tennis court."

Fukbaskaets' girlfriend - human-to-digital conduit (and blogger) Oulu Franchester-Hellcombe - recently set up a community management night market in Dalston where you can buy community management from a dozen al fresco stalls as a DJ plays in the background.

He shoots up and slides into his own personal oblivion. I leave through the first floor window, shaking my head.]]>Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Social Media but Were Afraid to Asktag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13669372012-03-20T11:21:16-04:002012-05-20T05:12:01-04:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/Oulu Franchester-Hellcombe is on hand to answer your questions. Here are the internet agony aunt's top tips for social success online.

Dear Oulu...

TWITTERING FOR BIRDS
'I'm a Canada Goose. Ironically, perhaps, there aren't that many regular avian tweeters. How can I get more Twitter followers?'
Colin The Canada Goose, Slimbridge Bird Sanctuary, Gloucestershire

Oulu Franchester-Hellcombe replies: Colin, you sound like a lovely goose and I certainly would not roast you for Christmas lunch! Try to engage with your existing followers, make good use of hashtags, and tweet about things you can really sound like an expert about - such as flying, making alarming screeching noises and eating bits of stale bread off the floor. Xxxx, OFH.'

TROLLING
'Why do members of the public who comment on stuff online either not understand the joke and come across as thoroughly mean - or else just sound batsh*t crazy?'
Ayehsa, Nottingham

OFH: 'Commenters aren't like you and I Ayesha. Many news websites clone commenters on special farms and keep them locked in tiny pens, fed on a diet of wild mushrooms. Mail Online keeps thousands of commenters down a well in Somerset. The lack of daylight partially explains the bizarre outbursts these peeps come up with. HASHTAG CRINGE!!!'

LOVE
'I think my ex-boyfriend is still looking at photos of me on Facebook and w***ing over them.'
Maria-Luzia, Sao Paulo, Brazil

OFH: 'He is. Block him.'
LOLZ
'Hi, can you tell me if there's a quick way of saying I want to 'laugh out loud' when I'm online?'
Alyssa, Boston, Massachusetts

OFH: 'lol'

RED CHINOS
'Oulu - you're a fashion blogger as well so can I ask your advice? I've got a date with a high-ranking, secretly gay government minister at Gordon's Wine Bar this Friday. Should I wear my red Topman chinos? He's a Tory.'
Dominic, Maidstone

OFH: 'LOL!'

REPREHENSIBLE A***HOLES
'Hi, I'm a reprehensible a***hole who lives in Dalston and deserves to be shot. I wear school shoes with no socks and perform excruciatingly naïve poetry at spoken word nights, yet for some reason girls with English degrees from redbrick universities can't get enough of me. I am a part-time PR and recently formed an electro band (with myself) called X\X\X (we were featured in the Sound of 2012). Could you suggest three different letters I could change the name of my band to in order to get better SEO results?'
Rupert, Dalston

OFH: 'LOL?'

BUSINESS
'I used to be a force for good but now I've become a lacertilian conduit for the purest, most monstrous manifestation of corporate advertising-led evil. Does capitalism inevitably corrupt?'
Sergey, Palo Alto, California

OFH: 'OMG Sergey! My parents are both corporate lawyers who met over a glass of chilled Perrier-Jouët and a Le Creuset dish brimful of gooey Raclette at a chalet in Chamonix some years ago. These days Daddy is often in Dushanbe or Bishkek or Almaty signing off large arms deals masterminded by Central Asian tyrants which result in localised human rights catastrophes. But he always buys me and Mum a lovely big Christmas pressie - so he's not all bad!'

JOURNALISM
'I'm a young journalist and I quite like the idea of writing long form articles in newspapers and magazines. I wouldn't mind writing for blogs and websites if some of them actually paid me for doing that. Is there any hope at all for the future or should I just go down to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal this afternoon and slit my wrists?'
Flora, Bingley

OFH: 'Oh Flora, your question made me ROFL!'
WTF?
'Oulu, you're a fictional character who doesn't exist. I created you as a vehicle for some slapdash Sunday afternoon satire. So how come you're doing webchats on your own now?'
Christopher, London

OFH: 'You don't understand fictional women at all, do you Chris? You need to spend an afternoon on Pinterest. Xoxo, OFH.' ]]>Food and Drink: Human Flesh on the Menu at London Restauranttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13022882012-02-27T19:00:00-05:002012-04-28T05:12:01-04:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/Geffryda Frygefda eats her words...

"I know you're a cannibal," sang The Breeders in 1987. And never could they have been more right about that than tonight. The candles have been lit, Fleet Foxes radio has been selected on Last.fm - to murmurs of approval. A group of seven sharply-attired 32-year-olds - two heterosexual couples, one homosexual pairing, and one Welsh gal (me) are discussing Urban Outfitters' latest range of Instagram-branded crockery over a bowl of wasabi peas.

One couple from Clapham tells me they've been camped outside for the previous four nights on the off-chance that the chef will deign to turn up to his own home - that's how the 'no reservations' rule rules London restauration these days, folks.

I'm sitting at a pop-up restaurant in the East London flat of ruggedly handsome chef Johanathansen Swiftsen, who comes from the country of Scandinavia. His pad in Richmond Road, London Fields, is all exposed beams and exposed bricks and exposed space. Swiftsen tells me that the estate agent who sold it to him told him it used to be a mobile phone factory back in Victorian times. Apt then that his modern day mobile phone is ringing off the hook right now. Because he's so popular.

After presenting us with an amuse bouche of sous-vide human hair and finger nails, Swiftsen retreats to the kitchen. What follows momentarily distracts us from our cocktails: blood-curdling screams, pleas of mercy screeched in an unfamiliar tongue, then silence. Followed by chopping, hacking, sawing. While a horror movie is acted out next door, we argue good-naturedly about which is the best supper club and gastro-trend right now.

An hour later and dinner is served. Human four ways. I sink my teeth into the wonderful, buttery flesh; purring and pawing and smearing the blood all around my lips and my cheeks and giggling like I used to do when I ran along those bracing Pembrokeshire cliffs as a girl in search of fairies and fantasy worlds.

Yes, we are dining on human flesh, explains chef Swiftsen, breathily and manlyly. But his chiselled cheeks and mop of brown hair are all I can concentrate on as I nod my head willingly. "We're eating a Zimbabwean refugee called Precious..." he laughs, while sipping Manzanilla, "...with sorrel. I bought her at Ridley Road Market this morning. She was shaking uncontrollably. It took quite a lot of Valium before I could get her in the boot of my Volvo."

"Of course!" squeals one of my fellow diners exuberantly, "I knew those screams were in Ndebele! I read something about some war or something in Zimbambia on The Huffington Post last month." Quickly, she goes back to snapping photos of our meal with her iPhone and excitedly pinning them up on Pinterest.com, while scanning the site for other treats. "Oooh look at that pink vintage stove!" she yodels.

I know what you're thinking - there's a big ethical problem with all this. Me too. What about the food miles? I question chef Swiftsen sternly. Couldn't you locally source a human? His reply is that he tried to - in fact it seems several journalism students at City University have already expressed an interest in being slain and eaten so they can write posthumous first person features about the experience.

The demand for human meat is exceeding supply - so for now an asylum seeker will have to do. "Look on the bright side Geffryda," says Swiftsen, smirking. "These people usually make an overland journey from Africa, so no carbon-heavy air travel!" At this we all laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and I shoot Swiftsen a brief adoring glance, but he doesn't notice.

Cannibalism is becoming the food fad of 2012 after sweeping across the Atlantic. Top New York restaurant La Petite Mort has been serving braised child's cheeks with sorrel, while a Los Angeles food truck called Organ Donor has been serving human liver and onions (and sorrel), and devilled human kidneys across LA.

It's all a far cry from my native Wales, where my earliest memory is of tasting roast lamb at a lunch with Sir Martin Sorrell (a family friend) on my tear-stained trips back home from boarding school.

I walk out into the nippy night air. It had been a solipsistic evening. Or had it? Either way, now I have a taste for human flesh I need some more. I spy some teenagers goofing around on BMX bikes in a dimly lit passageway. I head over, carving knife in hand, licking my lips.
Next week - Geffryda Frygefda eats her words about... the best artisan fox pâtés]]>Why Can't Journalists Stop Writing Books?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12725772012-02-13T19:00:00-05:002012-04-14T05:12:01-04:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/
Here, Mrs Greenfingers shoots the breeze with ghostwriter Gunint Tanner, as the pair discuss books recently written by Fleet Street's finest.

All The Men I've Ever W**ked Off
by Lara Crumble
(Self-published eBook)

CG: Deary me, this is enough to make one reach for the bromide and Jaffa Cakes.

GT: Not only does prolific confessional journalist Lara Crumble list all the men she's w**ked off but she also jams that information into a wider treatise on how the newly single gal about town can understand the t*ts-obsessed minds of 'guys'.

CG: One of the writers I represent - who sells a barrowload of books and keeps me in Hobnobs - said to me the other week: 'Chaz, isn't all writing just a love letter to someone who's special now or someone who was special back then?' Good point. Awful writer though.

I Have A Reem: The Joey Essex Story
by Mitchell Shark
(Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton & Hamilton)

CG: Lordy. Tabloid showbiz editor Mitchell Shark's 'biography' of TV personality Joey Essex made me wince. In fact I haven't winced that much since I erroneously glugged down a carafe of corked Corbières at the French House in Soho. What a farrago.

GT: I had to ghostwrite this book because Mitchell has been busy at the Leveson Inquiry.

GT: High concept novel influenced by BS Johnson which consists of 311 blank pages and comes with a quill and ink. Readers have to sit in an adjacent room thinking about what it is that the ghost of pioneering brutalist architect Alison Smithson was telling arts editor Vilchetta Clamproof in the hope that Alison's ghost will miraculously communicate those thoughts using the quill and ink. Bear in mind that if you think your housemate or partner might be even vaguely considering compiling a shopping list, it's wise to wait until they're out before you start 'reading' this book.

CG: Vilchetta's own review section gave this book the full five stars.

The Thoughts And Feelings Of Everyone Sitting On This Bus
by Emaline Stretton
(Three Kind Mice Publishers)

GT: A remarkably mature and edifying effort; utterly inimical to the usual rash of sickeningly self-centred ego-fuelled first person novels from former journalists which tell the shallow story of some imagined protagonist who is of course a thinly veiled facsimile of the book's author. Here Stretton - a courageous local newspaper reporter in Birmingham - takes a fictional group of people on the number 35 bus as a starting point and delicately looks into their souls, teasing out their sadness, their joy, their anxieties.

CG: Unlike this one, most novels work on the disgusting principle of masturbating in the mirror.

GT: I do that a lot now I'm divorced.

LOL Up Your Life
By Oulu Franchester-Hellcombe
(LOL Books)

CG: Find out from blogger Oulu how to get a boyfriend with a preposterous haircut and a penchant for wearing red chinos, bake a cake shaped like a whale, locate the latest trendy speakeasy where cocktails cost £35 and "find the most ROFL-iest fun times on Twitter".

GT: The first half of this novel by film reviewer Casppar Fzzzf is a kind of hyper version of Ulysees - with everything taking place during a flirtatious seven minute cigarette smoking session in the beer garden of a Leeds pub, as two people grow closer to each other and discuss their shared love of free-form urban exploration. In the book's second half we catch up with the unnamed male protagonist, who lost his paramour in the boozy melee.

Because he's so drunk, all he remembers is that she likes to walk every Saturday, so he too goes walking round Leeds every Saturday to search for her. After a year of fruitless attempts to find the girl of his dreams, he finally bumps into her at Greggs The Bakers by the Bus Station. But, tragically, his fantasy flaneur reveals she has a boyfriend now and after a clumsy conversation, it transpires that his entire importunate quest was pointless. He buys himself a consolation Steak Bake and a can of Tango then slinks off towards the Inner Ring Road, slumps on a verge and has a little cry. Did I give away the ending?

CG: None of this has been very funny, has it?

GT: Not everything has to be funny. Anyway, it's all made up. Everything is made up. Every character in every novel is made up. We're made up.

CG: This is getting a tad meta, my dear.

GT: You're telling me. We're both just fictional characters existing like so much flotsam inside the brain of the same writer.

CG: You're f*cking sh*tting me?]]>TV: Great British Bandwagon Jumping Journeystag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.11934632012-01-09T19:00:00-05:002012-03-10T05:12:01-05:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/Great British Railway Journeys has proved so popular with teatime viewers that a host of other 'journey' shows are set to follow in its footsteps. All of which begs the question: why bother leaving the house at all?

Great British Bus Journeys

Michael Portillo's patience is tested to the limit as he embarks on a series of journeys aboard the piss-stained upper decks of buses travelling through some of Britain's most colourful inner-city areas. In episode one, Portillo circumnavigates Birmingham onboard Travel West Midlands' number 11A service.

Along the way he samples regional delicacies like fried chicken and chips served in a small cardboard box, smokes cannabis with unemployed local men, and discusses technology with boisterous schoolchildren who demonstrate how to share the latest dubstep tracks via BBM Music.

Great Journeys Back in Time

Each week one person who has received a recent piece of baffling, highly unwanted and completely unexpected news which now threatens to spectacularly wreck a particularly piquant romantic fantasy future featuring haikus and hand-holding at indie gigs is offered the chance to travel back in time using a prototype time machine currently under development at the CERN laboratory in Geneva.

Once back in the past, there is the opportunity to change history and save the future by ritually sacrificing TV presenter Richard Hammond with a bent fish slice. Due to the perplexing vagueries of the Novikov self-consistency principle, despite his bloody death each week, Hammond is miraculously able to return to 2012 unharmed to host the following week's episode and help out another hapless participant.

Great British Journeys Down Narrow Streets - With Journey

Soft-rock band Journey are forced at gunpoint to trudge down a particularly narrow street, while being pelted with rotten vegetables by disgruntled onlookers who are as sick of the San Francisco band's music as they are of soggy amateur choir soap Glee. Week one comes live from The Shambles, York.

Over the course of three episodes, magazine features journalist (and aspiring TV presenter) Lara Crumble is joined by reality TV star and glamour model (and aspiring TV presenter) Elissa Honeytrap to take a journey of self-discovery - by sitting in a Shepherd's Bush flat, watching hours and hours of BBC Three self-discovery programmes.

What will this experience teach the pair about themselves? Possibly little more than confirming that it's not possible for one human to eat more than two tubes of Pringles in a single sitting. The series begins on BBC Three this March.

Unforgivable Moldovan Transit Van Journeys

Male celebrities who have paid for the services of prostitutes - yet have also either taken out super-injunctions to prevent the papers reporting this, or made a bloody big fuss about the hacking scandal - are invited to see how far their new-found piety will stretch by taking part in this light-hearted new Saturday night series.

Each male celebrity is dumped in Moldova (without their iPhone). After six months of living in grinding poverty they believe they've been forgotten about. The celebrity is befriended by a local trafficker and offered the chance of a sweaty, illicit journey in the back of a Transit van to Dover, and a new life.

Unfortunately, the second they arrive in Kent each celebrity is beaten up, sold into a despicable nightmare of forced prostitution and compelled to service oblivious former friends who no longer recognise them. From the producers of Take Me Out. Paddy McGuinness presents.]]>Music: The Sound of 2012tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11606302011-12-21T19:00:00-05:002012-02-20T05:12:01-05:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/
1.Z\Z
Z\Z (pronounced "zed-forward-slash-zed") is the brainchild of Rupert White. White, who graduated from the University of Manchester with a BA in English, formed the solo project after meeting himself at the Shacklewell Arms pub in Dalston, East London.

Z\Z produce sparse, spooky, ethereal music which is influenced by both dubstep and, according to White: "Empty car parks at night." The results can be heard on a debut EP called 3 To The Some Things. White has a Norwegian girlfriend who works part-time in clothes shop Hub and part-time for a user-generated content website. White sports floppy hair and wears brogues with no socks. White tells us: "There is no-one making music like this at the moment."

2.My Frenemy's Frenemy
This hipster nonet formed in Bushwick, Brooklyn, last week. Taking off her large rimmed spectacles and seductively chewing on one of the arms, trianglist Ccheryll Wwerrell explains, while winking, that My Frenemy's Frenemy's sound is a mix of "Gelato, teen movies, butterfly kisses and flea markets."

The band's first release was uploaded onto Soundcloud one minute ago, and is largely an 80s synth-folk affair, titled Run Your Lips Up And Down My (Throgs) Neck.Expert view

3.Z\Z\Z
Z\Z\Z (pronounced "zed-forward-slash-zed-forward-slash-zed") in the brainchild of Piotr Magenta. Magenta, who graduated from the University of Nottingham with a BA in English, formed the solo project after meeting himself at the Spurstowe Arms pub in London Fields, East London.

Z\Z\Z produce sparse, spooky, ethereal music which is influenced by both dubstep and, according to Magenta: "Empty car parks at night." The results can be heard on a debut EP called 6 To The Everything.

Magenta has a Finnish girlfriend who works part-time in clothes shop Beyond Retro and part-time for an arts and listings website. Magenta sports floppy hair and wears brogues with no socks.

Magenta tells us: "There is no-one out there quite like me at the moment."

4.Girls Need ROFLs
Emo-revivalists formed from the ashes of Girls Need Cuddles, and based in St Louis, Missouri. Their debut album - I Saw You Waiting At The Train Station (Reading The Bell Jar) But Will You Wait For Me? - references girls, girlfriends, getting dumped by the only girl you ever loved, and the smell of girls' hair. The band is composed of boys.
The debut single by Girls Need ROFLs - titled I Keep Mental Pictures Of You (On The Inside Of My Eyelids) - is out on January 2nd 2012.Expert View
Bob Faloma, managing director of Discrepancy Records: "I signed this band the first time I saw them. I was as high as a kipper. I expect them to generate a lot of profit for my company. In industry terms they are a 'purple banana' - ie: you don't get many of them at Whole Foods."

5.Z\Z\Z\Z
Z\Z\Z\Z (pronounced "zed-forward-slash-zed-forward-slash-zed-forward-slash-zed") is the brainchild of Albert L'Orange. L'Orange, who graduated from the University of Bristol with a BA in English, formed the solo project after meeting himself at the Haggerston pub in Haggerston, East London.

Z\Z\Z\Z produce sparse, spooky, ethereal music which is influenced by both dubstep and, according to L'Orange: "Empty car parks at night." The results can be heard on a debut EP called 8 To The Nothingness.
L'Orange has an Icelandic girlfriend who works part-time in clothes shop Pelicans And Parrots and part-time for a social networking website. L'Orange sports floppy hair and wears brogues with no socks.

L'Orange tells us: "There just aren't people pushing boundaries the way I'm pushing them at the moment."

6.Amm'ee-li-yah W'e'sto'n
Twenty-two-year-old urban pop star-in-the-making Amm'ee-li-yah W'e'sto'n went to Leona Lewis Secondary School in Clapton, London. Over a plate of peri-peri chicken, Amm'ee-li-yah sighs: "My style is like kittens being given birth to, yeah? But grittier." Expert view
Lara Crumble, features writer: "Golly. Amm'ee-li-yah W'e'sto'n is my red hot tip for the top! I was in the ladies loos at Soho House the other week and her PR came up to me, smashed as ever, and said: 'Lara! Put Amm'ee-li-yah W'e'sto'n in your ones to watch list. She's crap, right. But she's cool. That's what matters. She'll be huuuuge.' Can't argue with that candour!"
]]>2011: The Media Year in Reviewtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11141982011-11-27T18:00:00-05:002012-01-27T05:12:02-05:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/Lara Crumble
Writes features for women's magazinesOn...The year in media
"My media review of the year? Christ. Fiddlesticks. Ummm? Okay. Let me think. There was a handsome news editor in February. Let's call him Mr Reporter. I review him at 3/5. Er? Christ. Ummm, a fairly dreamy BBC radio presenter in May. Good girth - 4/5. A TV producer in October - 2/5. Was constantly on his BlackBerry when we were in bed. Oh and some noticeably troubled freelancer last month - 0/5. He didn't have a clue. Is that what you wanted?"

Brod Newland
Editor of an influential music weeklyOn...Something?
"2011: The MDMA year in review? Yar, I've had some superb MDMA this year; BELEIVE. I did notice a frickin' tail-off in supplies during festival season though."

Melanie Liars and Lemony Utter
Co-proprietors of Utter Liars PROn...The year in PR
"What a great year. It's really been a fantastic year of fire-fighting. A superb year. Hasn't everything just been wonderful? Some PR bods (though not us) got in a spot of bother for promoting some nasty guys in Libya, Syria and Bahrain. But PR is about pushing the positives, and I'm certain that certain people will certainly learn from their mistakes. And not that many peeps got killed. We (that's Mel 'n' Lem - we're both writing this on our iPhones in the Hospital Club) would still represent 'repressive', or as we like to call them, 'improving' regimes. We'll just charge more to do it in '12. Brilliant."

Elissa Honeytrap
Reality TV star and glamour modelOn...The year in celebrity
"You know its bin quite a year for me. I've bin twittering a lot about myself and the fun stuff I've bin up too. Lots of yummy reality shows and lots of great people going out drinking cocktails in the West End! I'm not so happy bout those people riting things about me that I don't want them too, but I'm shure that won't be hapening much next year. Bad journalists!"

Jeremy Fukbaskaets
Writes about the mediaOn...The year in journalism
"It's been a tricky year for traditional journalism. Hacking scandals, falling revenues, budgetary squeezes. Tough times. I gave a speech to a class at a public school in Berkshire last month. Over 70% of the sixth-formers wanted to become newspaper hacks. I said to them: You're all probably booked on gap years to India, right? Well I've got some advice for you. Forget journalism. When you see the beggars in Delhi - bed down with them, tear up your return ticket from STA Travel, learn Hindi, sit in that hole in the road with them, smoke appalling cigarettes, eat puri, and enjoy it. Because your standard of living will be way higher there than if you move to London and try to make it as a journo, believe you me."

Brod NewlandOn...The defensive
"My intern just came up to me to point something out. I think I misread the question you emailed over and my reply was bit too fierce. I'd like to point out that no-one at this magazine ever takes drugs. Especially not me." ]]>The Worst Date Movies Evertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10792422011-11-07T18:00:00-05:002012-01-07T05:12:01-05:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/Blue Valentine - the cinematic equivalent of watching oblivious ducklings waddling onto a motorway at rush hour - Hollywood has gone mad for sadness. Bouncy rom-coms are out, films that portray the crushing disappointment of lost love are in. Shame, The Future, and Like Crazy are some examples of this new fascination with bleakness, but here arts editor Vilchetta Clamproof and film critic Casppar Fzzzf discuss the other new films which are surely the worst date movies ever.

Vilchetta Clamproof: "So, we meet again Casppar. Enlighten us about some of these grim antidotes to the traditional rom-com. Most of them depict warring couples and romances that end badly. Sound familiar?"

Casppar Fzzzf: "Directors are sticking two fingers up at the audience in some cases. My Ten Husbands Died And Then I Died is a dreadful 'tearjerker' directed by Michael Bay, and starring Kate Hudson as a very unlucky woman indeed. Each time she thinks she's found happiness, her husband dies in an increasingly preposterous way. After her tenth husband dies she contracts malaria and passes away herself. Bam. Pass me the sick bucket."

Vilchetta: "Speaking of women who've had a large number of partners, how is your new girlfriend? And perhaps you'd tell us about the next film?"

Casppar: "She asked me to send her regards. Patatas Muertas, out next month, is another of these films about what happens when love goes sour like milk. It's directed by Almodovar protege Ramos Cojones. The film tells of a deeply upset young writer called Miguel who takes his ex-girlfriend - the only woman he's ever really loved - to an upmarket tapas restaurant in Barcelona for one final meal. During the dinner it becomes apparent that she'll never take him back and they'll never eat together again. So Miguel secretly poisons the patatas bravas with the intention of recreating a Romeo And Juliet-style death pact. But due to a waitressing error, the patatas are given to different diners - who die. Miguel is convicted of murder and his remaining 25 years in Catalonia's harshest prison are depicted in real time, as the introspective Miguel is repeatedly tortured by other prisoners until - sobbing, broken and lovelorn, he finally takes his own life by fashioning a noose from churros and hanging himself as Ricky Martin's Livin' La Vida Loca plays, ironically, in the background."

Vilchetta: "Sounds like a hoot. Love really is a losing game - as that late, great chanteuse of Camden Town, Amy Winehouse, once pointed out with so much poignant accuracy. She could so easily have been talking about the lost love between two journalists, couldn't she? As we both know, scribblers should never go out with each other. Another film?"

Casppar: "Yep, it was a complete sh*tter. But at least I can get some peace now. Anyway, the next offering is a low budget indie flick called We Never Even Met. Now this one is about a couple who never even met. This black and white effort just follows the lives of two people in Brooklyn for 90 minutes - people who would be perfect for each other but never even met. And what could be sadder than that? Apart from the off licence closing early."

Vilchetta: "You drank like an 18th Century lush. And now you have peace? I'm speechless. The last time I saw you - remember when you were sobbing and pleading with me to get back together - you were perched on that park bench and it seemed somehow redolent of Rodin's The Thinker. But your behaviour for those two years reminded me more of Rodin's lesser known twin work, The W*nker.

Casppar: "While we're at it, are you ever going to commission another feature from me? Because that work dried up pretty suddenly, I seem to remember. Coincidence? But back to the films. You Give Me The Horn (Of Africa), Thank You Very Much is also a contender for worst date movie ever. This one is about the forbidden love between two men - one from the self-declared Republic of Puntland and the other from the rival breakaway nation of Somaliland, nextdoor. The lovers are forced to conduct their affair in secret and are compelled to fight in opposing armies during a protracted low-level guerilla war. Yes, there's some shooting in this one! Bang! The saddest tragedy of all is that the Elvis-loving pair can never fulfill their dream of marrying in the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas with a Presley impersonator acting as witness because the UN doesn't officially recognise either state and they can't get a passport. An al Shabab car bomb kills them both at the end. Did I give too much away? Who cares anyway."

Vilchetta: "You really were the most abominable partner. I literally had to spend a weekend speed-reading the entire works of Milan Kundera to get my sanity back."

Casppar: "Thanks. Can I go now? It's nearly last orders. There's also this flick coming out called The Emo Diaries. It's about a girl in England and a boy in America who correspond online for eight years about their shared love of blah blah emo music and, yawn, how they love to write in their diaries. But the day before they are due to meet in person a fridge falls out of a helicopter onto the boy's head and due to massive brain damage he's unable from then on to enjoy any music other than R&B. So they drift apart, have casual sex with dozens of people they don't even like over the course of a lifetime and both settle into ultimately loveless marriages, dying in their 60s of heart disease coupled with boredom. This one's akin to having acid poured into you f***ing eyes."

Vilchetta: "Close the door behind you on your way out."

Casppar: "I'll be glad to."
]]>The Next Mad Men? Why Writers, Directors and TV Execs are Desperate to Depict the Mediatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10218882011-10-20T19:00:00-04:002011-12-20T05:12:01-05:00Christopher Beanlandhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-beanland/
Right now these people are making all kinds of art which is inspired by the media.

I interviewed some people in the know about this, and they told me that.

In fact the media, in all its glorious shades - from brown... to black - seems to be flavour of the month for everyone from playwrights to novelists.

(While you're reading this post, can you also note that the voice you hear in your head speaking my words from the screen right now is actually the voice of Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, from ITV's Downton Abbey - played by Dame Maggie Smith. I have absolutely no idea why this is.)

FILM Page Two: Inside The Lynn News

Me: "My dear! There are working clarrse people on the Abbey's croquet lawn! I mean... can you tell me why anyone would want to make a film about a newspaper?

Casppar Fzzzf, film critic: "This movie slices and dices its way through a struggling rural newspaper (motto: All the news about West Norfolk that's fit to print) like a knife through cows**t. We follow star farming reporter Arnold Thomas as he investigates tractor theft, EU subsidies, bean prices and cattle-rustling. It's the love interest between 96 year-old Arnold and work experience girl Kelly, 18, that really sizzles though. Sparks fly when Kelly gives Arnold his first pill and they go on a bender along King's Lynn's dizzying nocturnal strip, Norfolk Street."

TVSilicon Roundabout Scandal Club

Me: "Let me get this straight. This is a drama based in a Shoreditch office building where a social networking startup, a peer recommendation and reviews website, and an apps development business are based. And it's set in the 1950s?"

Jeremy Fukbaskaets, media journalist: "By setting a series about the lives and loves of hip youngsters working in new media in the 1950s, Channel 4 are really breaking new ground. I guarantee you won't see any other TV shows featuring the working lives of community managers, multimedia producers and content editors set in the 1950s."

THEATREB.L.O.G. - by Teatro Tres Gatos Muertos

Me: "Go on then..."

Thorn Thorenson, playwright: "The blogger Oulu Franchester-Hellcombe wrote me a blog post, which I turned into my play for Teatro Tres Gatos Muertos. Then she'll write anther blog post about the play that was based on her blog post. Then I turn that blog post into my next night's play. Then she writes about that play, then I turn it into material for my following night's play. There's no end to my play. Isn't it beautiful?"

TVLike A Sort Of Modern Day Mad Men

Me: "So this one is like a sort of modern day Mad Men?"

Vilchetta Clamproof, arts editor of a national newspaper: "Precisely. Doesn't it ever strike you that Don Draper is like Euripedes in so many ways? This series portrays average advertising agency office life today rather than in the 1960s - or in Ancient Greece. Witness creatives sucking the blood of actual Cambodian babies, managers' recreational usage of heroin, and a lifesize Bill Hicks cut-out in the corner. 'That cut-out of Bill,' says account executive Josh Toshua, winking uncontrollably at one point, is 'ironic.'"

BOOKSpinning Round In Circles

Me: "This book sounds f***ing awful."

Chazory Greenfingers, literary agent: "Yes dear, it really is. Can you imagine who would want to read such a thing. A book about PRs and journalists? Written by someone who is a hack. Yes, really. It really and truly boasts - if that's the right word - a narrative supposedly satirising loads of horrendous journalists and horrific PRs. About as funny as gout. Juvenile in the extreme. Pass me my smelling salts and my George Eliot biography, if you will."
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